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Eye of the Emperor
The Eye of the Emperor is the oldest ship within the Battlefleet Vigilius, an Ironclad estimated to date back to the Age of Strife. History The Eye of the Emperor was discovered by the Mechanicus during the settling of the Vigilius sector. Found drifting within the asteroid belt of the Turbela system, it was quickly boarded and inspected. Discovering it was built around a massive archeotech laser weapon, Mars soon sent a team of Archeotech experts to study the weapon and restore the ship to functionality. While the ship and the laser were eventually restored to working condition, it was deemed that the only way to understand the workings of the laser would be to disassemble the generator machines, a task that had been avoided due to the high risk of damaging them. With the chance of success being calculated to lower than four percent the Adepts of Mars deemed it to dangerous to attempt and agreed to let the local forge world of Ivaldi Primus take charge of maintaining the machine. After the Horus Heresy After the fires of war settled, it became necessary to establish battlefleets in the Imperium's numerous sectors. One of the ships designated to serve within the Vigilius sector was the Eye of the Emperor, then called by the Mechanicus; Archeotech designate: LENS. Initally the Mechanicus were none too eager to cede control of the ship, but eventually agreed under the condition that the maintenance and firing of the ships cannon be entirely under the control of the Mechanicus adepts aboard the ship, and that firing the cannon would only be done with the approval of the Magos in charge. Thus even to the present the firing of 'The Eye' is handled entirely by the Mechanicus and firing it involves the captain formally requesting to the Magos that the Eye be fired. Armament An ancient ship, the armament of the Eye of the Emperor is far from standard making it a rather situational, if powerful, tool of war. The Eye Taking up the front four km of the battleship - five when power generators and capacitors are included - is the gun for which the ship is named for. Known simply as the Eye, the gun is essentially a single enormous lance. The only part of the armament original to the ship, the tremendous laser is both incredibly powerful and a giant weakness. The laser is generated by a gigantic archeo-tech machine before passing through the 120 meter wide barrel, passing through a series of focusing lenses. Due to the sheer size of both the gun, the power generators, and the cooling system, no other guns can be mounted on the front half of the ship. Also due to the size and placement of the Eye it both takes several minutes to charge before each shot as well as cool after while also requiring the ship to be pointed at the target. Despite these draw backs, the Eye still remains an astonishing weapon of war. The sheer power of the lance allows it overwhelm the void shields of most vessels, allowing it to destroy enemy ships at great distances with a single shot. This has proven especially effective against both the Orks and Tyranids who tend to group ships together allowing the Eye to damage or destroy multiple ships with each shot. It also has proven to be a powerful tool at ship to planet warfare, as a single shot can take out planetary defense's void shields, especially as the laser contains enough energy to cause mass ionization and even fusion in atmosphere it passes through, making so that every shot is accompanied by nuclear explosions. Rear batteries Despite the immense power of the Eye, the rear batteries of macrocannons are rather underwhelming. Amounting to less than what is typically found on even cruisers, the Eye of the Emperor is actually a rather poor at ship to ship combat, forcing it to rely on the other ships in its fleet to keep enemy ships at bay. Flight decks Positioned near the rear batteries, the flight decks of the Eye of the Emperor primarily contain Fury Interceptors for defending the ship from enemy attacks. Crew The crew of the Eye of the Emperor has a noticeably larger percentage of Mechanicus adepts than most Imperial Navy vessels. Making up a quarter of the crew, most are devoted to the maintenance and firing of the Eye, with their arch-magi serving as an advisors to the admiral. Category:Starships Category:Imperial Navy Category:Vigilius sector